By Nate Harling

If you have been anywhere near the University of Kentucky’s Don & Cathy Jacobs Science Building this month, it is more than likely you heard at least one language you have never heard before. Since the beginning of July, there have been people on campus speaking a plethora languages ranging from Mauritian Creole to Farsi to Kalaallisut, the language spoken by the indigenous people of Greenland.

Creolists Salikoko Mufwene (r) and Stéphane Térosier at the Hilary J. Boone Center.

The UK College of Arts and Sciences is hosting the Linguistics Society of America’s (LSA) biennial Linguistic Institute, the world’s largest extended gathering of linguists. Institute Program Director Jo Mackby was quick to dispel the common misconception that linguists only learn how to speak foreign languages.

“

By Gail Hairston

Derek Young, University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of statistics, recently published his new book, “Handbook of Regression Methods,” which concisely covers numerous traditional, contemporary and nonstandard regression methods. 

The handbook provides a broad overview of regression models, diagnostic procedures and inference procedures, with emphasis on how regression methods are applied. The organization of the handbook benefits both practitioners and researchers, who seek either to obtain a quick understanding of regression methods for specialized problems or to expand their own breadth of knowledge of regression topics.

“Handbook of Regression Methods” covers classic material about simple linear regression and multiple linear regression, including assumptions, effective visualizations and inference

By Gail Hairston

A team of scientists at the University of Kentucky and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been awarded a $200,000 National Science Foundation grant to develop a prototype of a battery utilizing chemical components prepared at UK.

UK chemistry professors Susan Odom and John Anthony synthesized

By Dave Melanson

Robby Pace, a chemistry graduate student, working at UK CAER.

The University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research’s (CAER) Biofuels and Environmental Catalysis Group has received a $2 million U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant to develop new emissions technology for low-temperature gasoline.

The project is titled “Research and Development of Novel Adsorber Technology to Address Hydrocarbon and Nitrogen Oxide Emissions for Low Temperature Gasoline Applications.” As part of the grant, UK CAER will be partnering with the University of California, Berkeley, Purdue University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Ford Motor Company.

This research project seeks to solve a problem with vehicle emissions. As internal combustion

By Vice President for Research Lisa Cassis

Abigail Firey didn’t set out to blaze trails in digital humanities. But that’s exactly what has happened in her quest to get a grasp on the enormous corpus of unpublished manuscripts that are part of her work in medieval canon law.

In this podcast Firey, the Theodore A. Hallam Professor (2017-2019) in the Department of History and a University Research Professor, recalls the chance encounter that changed her trajectory.

“In 2007 a researcher at UK in the Classics Department, Ross Scaife—deeply beloved—ran into me outside the library. And I was telling him about my work, and he said, ‘Have you considered a digital project?’ And I hadn't. And those few words really launched me into thinking about the ways that digital strategies and devices and tools might help us get at these thousands and thousands of

By Amanda Lee

Fiona Foster. Photo by William Bingham.

Recent University of Kentucky graduate and member of Phi Kappa Phi (PKP), Fiona Foster, has received the 2017 Phi Kappa Phi National Fellowship. PKP is the nation's oldest and most selective all discipline honor society, having over 300 chapters across the nation and more overseas.

PKP currently presents 51 fellowships of $5,000 each to award winners entering the first year of graduate or professional study. Each active PKP chapter may select one candidate from among its local applicants to compete for the society-wide award.  

Foster graduated in May 2017 with a mathematics major and a 

A team of scientists at the University of Kentucky and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to develop a prototype of a battery utilizing chemical components prepared at UK. Professors Susan Odom and John Anthony (UK Chemistry) synthesized new organic compounds as donors and acceptors for a type of battery called a redox flow battery (RFB), currently of great interest for large-scale energy storage. In collaboration with James Landon (UK CAER) and Fikile Brushett (MIT), the team will investigate the operation of the new materials in a prototype.

This PFI: AIR Technology Translation project focuses on incorporating high concentration organic electrolytes for redox flow batteries (RFBs) into functional, high-voltage, stationary batteries. RFB have advantages for electrical grid-scale energy storage options, including

Using observations from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) telescope, the team analyzed the spatial distribution of 3.6 million stars and found ripples that support evidence of the Milky Way’s ancient impacts.

A team from the University of Kentucky’s Department of Physics and Astronomy has observed evidence of ancient impacts that are thought to have shaped and structured our Milky Way galaxy.

Deborah Ferguson, a 2016 UK graduate, is the lead author on a paper that published this week in the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ). Ferguson conducted the research as an undergraduate student with co-authors Susan Gardner, a professor of physics and astronomy in the 

Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected based on academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The program operates in more than 160 countries worldwide.

The UK graduates awarded Fulbright grants are:

By Whitney Hale

Actor, writer and recipient of the 2016 Whiting Award Elena Passarello will be one of the featured presenters at the 2017 Kentucky Women Writers Conference running Sept. 15-16, in Lexington. In celebration of her upcoming appearance, the conference will also present a Pre-Conference Essay Workshop on Passarello’s work July 15, at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.

Earlier this year, Elena Passarello’s second essay collection, “Animals Strike Curious Poses,” was reviewed in The New York Times by Helen

Sue Roberts, the University of Kentucky’s associate provost for internationalization, is aware each day how much smaller the world seems than the day before.

A professor of geography in the UK College of Arts and Sciences, Roberts is a global thinker. She has dedicated herself to helping students, faculty and staff make international connections that will improve their scholastic standing and

By Gail Hairston

The American Political Science Association (APSA) recently announced that Travis N. Taylor, a graduate student at the University of Kentucky, has been named as a 2017-2018 APSA Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) Fellow, Spring Cycle.

Taylor is a second year doctoral student and teaching assistant in the UK College of Arts and Sciences Department of Political Science. He is studying American political behavior and public

By Gail Hairston

The sweet strains of traditional mountain music still drift on the summer breezes of the Appalachians, reflecting off the hills and flowing through the valleys. 

But before Appalachian mountain music was first preserved on wax discs — as the arid winds of the Dust Bowl blew and the soup lines of the Great Depression grew — the musicians played on handmade fiddles, dulcimers, zithers and mandolins, and heard with the hearts of generations.

Until the mid-19th century, the vast majority of musical instruments responsible for the sound of mountain music — dulcimers, guitars, violins or fiddles, banjoes, zithers and mandolins — were handmade and passed down from one generation to the next. The tunes and musical traditions were the inheritance of a melding of English, Welsh, Irish and Scottish ballads with the customs of Germany, Eastern Europe and

By Lori Minter

The University of Kentucky has released its Dean's List for the spring 2017 semester.  A total of 6,412 students were recognized for their outstanding academic performance. 

To make a Dean’s List in one of the UK colleges, a student must earn a grade point average of 3.6 or higher and must have earned 12 credits or more in that semester, excluding credits earned in pass-fail classes.  Some UK colleges require a 3.5 GPA to make the Dean’s List.

The full Dean's List can be accessed by visiting: www.uky.edu/PR/News/DeansList/.

UK is the University for Kentucky. At UK, we are educating more students, treating more patients with complex illnesses and conducting more research and service than at any time in our 150-year history. To read more about the UK story and how

By Jenny Wells and Dave Melanson

The University of Kentucky has received two of three U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grants for its promising work in the emerging field of rare earth element (REE) research.

DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy recently announced that the three projects have been selected to receive approximately $3 million for research aimed at producing salable rare earth elements from domestic coal and coal by-products. UK’s Department of Mining Engineering is a partner on one of those projects while UK’s Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER) is a partner on another project.

REEs are a series of 17 chemical elements found in the

By Whitney Hale

Trailer for the documentary "Look and See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry."

Next Friday (June 30) a film featuring the work of Kentucky’s own Wendell Berry will enjoy its U.S. theatrical premiere at the IFC Center in New York City. “Look and See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry” is a cinematic account of the changing landscapes and shifting values of rural America in the era of industrial agriculture, as seen through the mind’s eye of writer, farmer and activist Wendell Berry, an alumnus and former faculty member of the University of Kentucky Department of English.

The first documentary about Berry, one of America’s most significant living writers, “

UK Chemistry Researchers Develop Catalyst that Mimics the Z-Scheme of Photosynthesis

LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 22, 2017) — A team of chemists from the University of Kentucky and the Institute of Physics Research of Mar del Plata in Argentina has just reported a way to trigger a fundamental step in the mechanism of photosynthesis, providing a process with great potential for developing new technology to reduce carbon dioxide levels.

Led by Marcelo Guzman, an associate professor of chemistry in the UK College of Arts and Sciences, and Ruixin Zhou, a doctoral student working with Guzman, the researchers used a synthetic nanomaterial that combines the highly reducing power of cuprous oxide (Cu2O) with a coating of

By Jennifer T. Allen

J.C. Eaves made expanding the study of mathematics throughout Kentucky one of his life’s missions.

"I remember my father telling me the story of how he visited high schools in 119 of Kentucky’s 120 counties," said Jim Eaves, his son. "He put a great importance on math education in Kentucky high schools."

J.C. Eaves grew up in Muhlenberg County in a large family with 11 siblings. He came to UK and earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics before joining the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war, Eaves earned his doctorate at the University of North Carolina and, eventually, his path brought him back to his beloved state of Kentucky.

Jim Eaves grew up at the University of Kentucky. His family moved to Lexington when he was in the second grade, when his father became head of the Department of

By Amanda Lee

Tiffany Barnes, an associate professor in the University of Kentucky's Department of Political Science, will be honored with the American Political Science Association's (APSA) Alan Rosenthal Prize for her book "Gendering Legislative Behavior." She will be presented with the award at the APSA national meeting in September in California. 

This award encourages young scholars to study questions of importance to legislators and legislative staff. These scholars are also expected to conduct research that has potential application to strengthen the practice of democracy. 

"I am excited to see research about the important role women play in politics receiving national

By Megan Foltz

Danielle Galyer competed on Kentucky women's swimming and diving team. Photo courtesy of UK Athletics.

Growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, Danielle Galyer did not realize how prominent swimming was in her home state. However, the tough competition didn’t stop her from excelling. She began swimming at the age of 6 and just nine short years later at the age of 15, Galyer competed in her first Olympic trials.

“It was really good for me to go the first time and get the stress level of it all out of the way. It’s a really good experience because it is the elite of the elite,” she said.

With a strong work ethic and sense of commitment instilled by her parents, Galyer decided to attend the University of Kentucky on a swimming scholarship. “It was